Bitcoin may still drop a little lower, but it will rally back up to $20,000 this year, early bitcoin investor Ran Neu-Ner predicted on Thursday.
In fact, volatile swings in the cryptocurrency are the norm, he said in an interview with CNBC's "Fast Money."
"We've seen it go down 50 percent at a time. It's quite a resilient currency/commodity/asset that just keeps going up afterwards," said Neu-Ner, host of CNBC Africa's Crypto Trader.
He sees the bottom near $7,500 or $8,000.
On Thursday, bitcoin dropped below $9,000 on Coinbase, the leading U.S. marketplace for trading major cryptocurrencies.
Neu-Ner, who bought his first bitcoin in 2013, said the retail investor has only really been able to buy bitcoin for about a year.
However, it's been difficult to trade bitcoin, and the small number of buyers and sellers has led to volatility in the market, he said.
"I think 2018 is the year where the mechanisms to allow retail consumers to get into cryptocurrencies start to open themselves up," he said. "The price will become more stable."
— CNBC's Evelyn Cheng and Bree Kelly contributed to this report.